6 stones in the next year

[otenki]

Hi guys,

So almost another year is finished, time to wrap up and see where I got with my last years "good intends".
Last year in january I was about 9kyu kgs and wanted to get to 2kyu by the end of the year.

I FAILED! Howhever I did get to 3k kgs and can beat about 50% so I guess I'm half way through.

Although I did not make it to 2kyu I'm happy with the result of this year.
I know I'm not the fastest in rank progression but the pace is good enough.

That being said, what should I set as good intends for the next year ?
I think a hard but doable goal for next year is 3k-1d kgs.
This is about 1 stone every 4 months, should be doable no ?
I know it is a bit ambitious but so was my last years goal.

So how am I going to get there....?

- Playing (and reviewing) games
- Get a teacher (having a teacher in china helped me a lot, even if it was only for 2 months)
- Doing tsumego
- Reviewing some joseki after the games.

and ... thats it! No other fancy studies.

So the biggest part and question will be which tsumego books.

For next year I have in line:

- Lee chang ho tesuji 3-4 (already did 1 and 2)
- Lee chang ho life and death 3-4 (already did 1 and 2)
- Weiqi 1000 problems. (still could not finish it)
- 3600 clasic life and death (book 1 & 2)
- 501 tesuji problems

If I get a lot better I can also do:
- Lee chang ho tesuji 5-6
- Lee chang ho life and death 5-6
- qi jing zhong miao (Gokyo Shumyo)
- 3600 clasic life and death book 3

Any other hints for the next year are welcome of course

Oh and happy new year everyone !!!

Cheers,
Otenki

[Bill Spight]

Well, I see that I was responding to the Dec. 2012 note.

Never mind.

[otenki]

I have been playing for about one year, in this year I've gotten to about 9k kgs (EGF 11k) and have been stuck here for 5 months. The funny thing is that studying life and death shapes has not made me really a lot stronger. When I was 8k 5 months ago I started studying life and death and now I can read out a lot more corner situations etc which does come in handy. Howhever it did not make me even a stone stronger, wierd

Well, that must be disappointing....
Good luck!

Did you realise that I made a new post for this year ? The one you replied to was from last year.
Or was that your intend ?

Cheers,
Otenki

[Bill Spight]

Hi guys,

So almost another year is finished, time to wrap up and see where I got with my last years "good intends".
Last year in january I was about 9kyu kgs and wanted to get to 2kyu by the end of the year.

I FAILED! Howhever I did get to 3k kgs and can beat about 50% so I guess I'm half way through.

Although I did not make it to 2kyu I'm happy with the result of this year.
I know I'm not the fastest in rank progression but the pace is good enough.

That is good progress. Congratulations!

(I have retracted my previous note. )

[otenki]

Hi guys,

Its been a long time since I have written anything here.
I have been playing a bit but not studying that much because I felt really like there was not that much I could do about my go. Maybe I had lost my motivation.

This all changed this summer, when I decided I would go my first European Go Congress. Just for fun really. But when I got there every part of my go mind started sparkling again. I felt really happy to play go again. I counted, read, read, read and looked after my shapes as much as I could. I also followed a lecture which was a real eyeopener for me, something I will never forget.
The lecture was about the problem of answering your oponent moves in an effort to reduce a reduction. So for example your oponent spends a move in order to reduce you by 20 points. Now you have a choice, you could try to save part of that reduction by maybe 10 points (which is what I used to do intrinsicly) Or you can reduce your oponent also by 20 points. Maybe it seems very easy but for me this was a real eyeopener, I guess it shows my kyu-ness

I had a pretty good result in my games, 3/5 in first week and 4/5 in the weekend tournament which made me jump up to 4kyu EGF. But more important I had gained my confidence and energy back!

So I decided to make a plan for 5 months, starting from aug 1 until the end of the year. I was going to make my studies a lot simpler, but how would I go by this ?

This is what I (and my teacher) came up with:

- Get a teacher who can tell me about my main problems and help to resolve them.
- Play games on tygem, and do tsumego from real game problems that occur in my games. (You would be supprised how much tsumego your games contain which you don`t have time to read during your playing time)
- Go over older pro-games to fix my shape problems / bad habbits.
- Review the games with my teacher and by myself.

Rince and repeat, that`s all ...

So I hope I can get to 2k EGF in the 4 months. It sounds maybe too hard to do but I will really try my best to get there!

Let`s see how far I will get, thanks for reading

Cheers,
Otenki